What is this talk about?

Co-founder & CEO, EchoSign (Acquired by Adobe), SaaStr. Did $100M in revenue with Adobe this year.

How to hire your (first) VP Sales (and not screw it up)

Non-scientific study of 80 startups. 70% of Saas first VP Sales don’t make it to 12 months. It’s one of the most common, and also most devastating mis-hires in startups. However, if you avoid the most common mistakes, you’ve got much better chances of finding the right VP Sales.

Mistake #1: Wrong hire for your stage

The biggest mistake is founders want to hire from Salesforce or Dropbox or another big name company. He made a personal mistake here as well. Hired “Mr. Dashboard” when he should have hired “The Evangelist”.

Stages and types of VP Sales:

The Evangelist: < $1M

Mr. Make it Repeatable: $1M–$10M

Ms. Go Big: $10M–$40M

Mr. Dashboards: $40M+

Don’t just look for a smart, talented, experienced person to become your VP Sales. Look for one who is a good fit for the job that needs to be done in your company.

Want to learn more about sales hiring? Download The Sales Hiring Playbook, which is packed with not just practical advice, but also ready-to-use resources, interview questions to ask, hiring checklists, a sales rep onboarding schedule, fill-in-the-blank training documents and more.